Tasmania part II. 2nd – 4thDec

After our third visit to the campervan company we finally got away to the east coast and headed for Swansea and on to scenic Coles Bay. Although the distance was not great, it took hours to reach because, like everywhere in Tasmania, the roads are full of twists and turns, and also full of wallabies (see part I) so you cannot hurry.

This was a very remote village and so the laws of supply and demand were in full force here and everything was three times the price of anywhere before or since. Also, the bakery closed at 4pm, the petrol station/general store/chip shop closed at 6pm, and the local restaurant at 8pm so this was not going to be the place for late-night partying. We got a good night’s sleep to prepare for a day of hiking the next day.

Now the bakery was open I went slightly mad and bought my own bodyweight in great English-style goodies, like Cornish pasties and fruitcake. I justified this as hiking fuel but I’m not sure Dorka quite understood at the time that I had spent a tenth of our daily budget on impulse food. Actually we did eat the whole lot on foot, as we walked a very long way that day. We hiked up to the lookout over the pass to look down into scenic Wineglass Bay, then we actually walked all the way down into the bay. There are different stories as to why it’s a called Wineglass Bay: because of the shape or that the water is clear as glass, or (and this is our favourite) because the water once ran red like wine, with the blood of whales, which were slaughtered for oil and bones at the whaling station there. It doesn’t stink of rotting whale any more, and it is absolutely beautiful. The only downside was the cheeky wallabies. Nobody was taking any notice of the “Don’t feed the wild animals” signs everywhere, so of course these little buggers were hopping around us begging for food the whole time. We had to work hard for this memory though. The whole walk end to end was around 5 hours. Again Lara was in the backpack carrier for most of that period and stayed very happy the whole way.

After so much hiking, we only travelled s short distance, to the town of Bichenot, where I had arranged a penguin tour for us that evening. Only Emma and Andy went, and we took no camera on the tour, as the flash photography can blind little penguins. It was great though and we got really close to the penguins as they sneaked out of the water, across the beach and up through our group and off to their underground nests. The guide was also very knowledgeable, so we learnt quite a lot.

In the morning Dorka had some work to take care of so I took the kids to see the blow hole, a place in the rocky coastline where, occasionally a wave shoots up a narrow channel and spouts up high into the air like a geyser.

To make the best of a lost day, we visited a small zoo. It was actually a sanctuary for Tasmanian Devils which was originally set up by a family of Brits on holiday here, much like ourselves. This place was a lovely surprise. Not only were the displays great (everything from “match the poo in this drawer with the correct Australian animal” to the “Tasmanian Devil trivia quiz” the rangers were also great; we followed them as they fed all the animals and introduced us to kangaroos, wombats and Devils. It was a very educational and extremely personal experience. Later after closing time (we were the last ones to leave) we had a very stirring talk with the head ranger in the carpark. Andrew showed us a baby wombat (also called a joey, by the way – the name applies to all marsupial babies, we learned) wrapped in a jumper that he was hand-rearing. This baby’s mother had died in a road accident, but the joey remained alive in her pouch, and the driver brought it to the sanctuary. Apparently it happens quite a lot, and Andrew told us sadly how on his way to the job for the first time, he stopped at every single accident, checking pouches and collecting. The good news is that animals are recycled in the best possible way – people deliver them to the sanctuary, and they are given to the Tasmanian Devils, who are great scavengers, so they would naturally feed on dead wallabies anyways.

Funnily enough, as Andrew drove off, another ranger walked past, and he too had an animal in his pullover - a lizard called a blue-tounge. Snappy but quite pretty.

We thought it would be easy to drive back a little toward Hobart and stay in the town of Swansea, which has a reputation for great food. Unfortunately we hadn’t reserved a camping space at the campground. When we crawled there about an hour after dark, and of course tired out after an hour on wallaby watch, it was pretty sad to hear that there was no room for us. The owner simply couldn’t believe we could be so foolish. Feeling very irresponsible, we crawled off sheepishly looking for a place to stay. It was so late that we simply decided to camp wild. A huge carpark 10 metres from Swansea bay seemed acceptable for the night. Until about 4am, when I woke up stiff with cold, because of the freezing wing blowing in from the ocean, but at least I could see a beautiful sunrise.

On our final morning we had a picnic breakfast by the beach, repacked our things (found a clean pair of socks, and my toothbrush, yeay!) and then zoomed back to Hobart to catch our flight to Melbourne.